Industrial controllers are special-purpose computers utilized for controlling industrial processes, manufacturing equipment, and other factory automation, such as data collection or networked systems. At the core of the industrial control system, is a logic processor such as a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) or PC-based controller. Programmable Logic Controllers for instance, are programmed by systems designers to operate manufacturing processes via user-designed logic programs or user programs. The user programs are stored in memory and generally executed by the PLC in a sequential manner although instruction jumping, looping and interrupt routines, for example, are also common. Associated with the user program are a plurality of memory elements or variables that provide dynamics to PLC operations and programs. Differences in PLCs are typically dependent on the number of Input/Output (I/O) they can process, amount of memory, number and type of instructions, and speed of the PLC central processing unit (CPU).
One aspect that has not changed too much over the years is the need to program each phase of a PLC operation. Thus, if a change is required in a process, or the dynamics of an operation change over time, the PLC may need to be reprogrammed to account for such changes. As can be appreciated, having to re-program or change an existing automated operation can be time-consuming and expensive. Also, these changes can influence actual operator procedures resulting from such changes. For instance, one area that is generally in flux is the interaction between operators interacting with the PLC and possibly higher-level work flows that may be occurring in other areas of the plant. For example, an operator may be running an interface that controls some aspect of an industrial manufacturing operation. A business application may have detected in some other system that some element of the PLC process should be changed or varied in order to properly manufacture the respective product. This could include altering how the PLC and respective operator interfaces function in order to manage potential changes. Although, controllers can be programmed to perform substantially any type of manufacturing operation, current PLC architectures are somewhat inflexible in this regard. Unless the PLC had been previously programmed to account for the change, the current process may have to be stopped in order to respond in a desired manner.
In addition to system or process dynamics, many PLC systems can operate over a plurality of different type of networks and often to higher level processing systems such as batch servers, process servers, and other business applications. Networks can include lower level networks that are local in nature for controlling local cell operations to higher level networks such as Ethernet that can communicate to substantially any remote location within a plant or across the Internet, for example. Although, there may be pre-programmed interactions between these higher-level processes and lower-level PLCs and interfaces across the networks, standard ladder-logic programs are not generally suitable to account for changing factory dynamics that may have to alter operations in ways that cannot be predicted when designing the lower-level control programs. Generally, PLC programs have not been standardized in any generic manner to account for interactions that may influence lower-level operations. For instance, this could include a detected parameter change in a raw materials inventory that would require process changes in order to properly utilize the inventory. In current architectures, lower-level PLC operations, interfaces, and procedures would have to be re-programmed in order to account for such changes.